


Inbetween

by boneswrites



Series: Things You Said [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Angst, Confessions, Fluff, Jim can't go anywhere without Len, Len can't imagine a world without Jim, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boneswrites/pseuds/boneswrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things you said under the stars and in the grass: But I want you up there with me, you’ve always known that.</p><p>Where the attack on Vulcan never happens. It’s the night before Jim and Leonard’s graduation and Leonard has decided to stay on Earth, accepting a job at Starfleet Medical. One thing leads to another, drawing both men to the place they so desperately want to be: together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inbetween

**Author's Note:**

> One of the ways I imagine Jim and Leonard getting together. Never one without the other. Thank you for checking this out, and feedback is always greatly appreciated!

Jim’s eyes trailed along the black above, the silver glimmering and inviting him home. Sure he hasn’t gone up there for more than twenty-four hours at a time, but he knew he belonged among the stars, without a doubt, and he loved it already. And he was good at it, the best, even. No one would dare argue with that.

It was the hustling next to him that broke his thoughts and he turned his head to face the man next to him.

Leonard was trying to get comfortable, moving his chest sideways to find the right position. He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

“The damn ground is hard as hell,” he huffed. “And it’s wet.”

“It’s grass, Bones,” Jim chuckled. “They just gave it a spray of water.”

Leonard opened his eyes to glare to Jim, who just shrugged his shoulders and turned back to look at the sky. Jim reached out, placing his palm on Leonard’s chest and gave it a few pats.

“Relax, Bones, it will dry,” Jim assured, letting his touch linger for a few extra moments. He knew he should be pulling back but he really didn’t want to.

Leonard once again faced Jim, his expression unreadable. His eyes flickered from Jim’s palm to his face then back to his palm. As much as he wanted to tell Jim to _get your damn hand off me_ , he didn’t. He actually felt his body staring to relax and his breathing was coming easier.

“I don’t even know why we’re doing this,” Leonard grumbled.

“Because,” Jim gave him a smile, “where can you get a view like this?”

“Are you kidding me, Jim? You’re going to be between those things up there, you’ll get up close and personal with them.”

“So will you.”

Leonard tensed, and Jim retreated his arm.

“Jim,” Leonard blew out.

“Just hear me out, Bones,” Jim pleaded, moving so he was sitting with his legs crossed instead of lying on the grass.

“We’ve already talked about this.”

“No, yeah I know but it’s been a while and I thought…”

“Nothing’s changed, Jim,” Leonard shook his head. “We both know what we gotta do.”

Jim sighed.

“You’ll be fine, you’re always fine, you can’t wait to go out there.”

“I’m always fine because you’re always there,” Jim admitted. “I can’t go out there without you.”

“You can and you will,” Leonard insisted.

“What happened to the ‘no other doctor will ever lay one finger on you during a medical procedure’ threat?”

“It’s not the same thing, Jim, and you know it.”

“It’s exactly the same thing, Bones.”

“You’ll have a very capable medical team, Jim, I’m sure.”

“But I want you up there with me, you’ve always known that.”

“And you’ve always known that I can’t do it. Like I said, Jim, nothing has changed.”

“You’re meant for so much more, Bones, you know that. You’re meant for more than just to work at Starfleet Medical,” Jim defended.

“I barely passed my flight sims, Jim. I’m not fit for space.”

“But you _passed_ and that’s the most important.”

“No, Jim, it’s not. This is space we’re talking about, I need to be able to concentrate and perform under pressure if something were to go wrong—and things will go wrong, I owe the crew and the captain more than that, more than being a mess myself when things go sideways.”

Jim didn’t reply, calculating his words.

“We’ll stay in contact, Jim, of course we will.”

“That’s not the point, Bones! You know that I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for you? Do you know that I almost left a handful of times over the years but I didn’t _because I knew you were right beside me_? You gave me the strength to carry on, with your curses, and heavy tongue and grumpy attitude, it never annoyed me for one second because guess what? It held me together. You held me together and without you I’d just fall apart again.”

Leonard frowned, taken aback. “You…never told me that.”

Jim nodded. “Because there was no point. I’m here because of you, and that’s a fact.”

“So what? You would have walked in one night, grabbed whatever crap you had lying around and bolted? And I’d be…left behind? Did you think what it would have done to me?”

Jim’s face fell, the color draining in a heartbeat. “What? That’s—no, that’s not what I meant. Of course I thought about that, Bones you were the only one I was thinking of.”

“How’s that?” Leonard scoffed.

“Because you deserve better,” Jim blew. “I know how much of a mess I’ve been these years and you’ve stuck with it all, you’ve taken all my crap and all my shit and…you deserve someone who’s not this careless and broken.”

“Jim, are you hearing yourself?”

Jim nodded. “I’ve been hearing myself for years. And every time I’d stumble into the dorm after a fight and I’d see you sleeping and I think to myself that it’s not fair what I put you through, it’s not fair that you’re always worried and it’s definitely not fair that you have to look after me like a child.”

“Damn it, Jim, I’m a grown ass man, don’t you think I can make that decision for myself?”

“I didn’t want you to feel stuck with me, I wanted to make it easier for you.”

“Easier for me? And you think if you had just taken off and I’d woken up to an empty room, it would make it _easier_? Jim, if you had left, it would have destroyed me,” Leonard admitted, moving to sit up himself. “You know why I stood by you all those times? All those times I actually wanted to beat that head of yours in? Because I wanted to. Because there was no other place I would rather have been. For the first time in forever, I finally knew how it felt to belong somewhere, to belong to someone and to have a choice in the matter. And yes, you’re careless and broken, but so am I.”

“Why—why would you willingly choose to stay with me?” Jim blinked away the tears clouding his vision.

“Because as much as I patched you up and whatnot, you saved me, more times than I could count. I mean I have my own version.”

“You do?” Jim asked, his voice low and small.

“Remember that survival course you went on last year?”

Jim nodded. “The one that stretched.”

“That one, they didn’t tell us they would stretch it, even though you were the ones who shouldn’t have know that but it was all locked down. I thought something had happened to you, and I thought I’d never see you again and I—”

“What?”

“I drank. A lot. More than I have drunk since the divorce was finalized. I couldn’t tell day from night, I missed classes, didn’t go to my clinic shifts. I wanted to disappear. It wasn’t until Pike strode into our room and saw me slouching on the couch with an empty bottle in my hand and dragged my unconscious ass to the hospital that my senses were knocked into me.”

“What did he do?” Jim’s eyes widened.

“He was quite understanding, actually. He made sure they cleared out my system before shutting the door and grabbing the chair next to my bed. I was expecting some rant or yelling or hell, even for him to blow my brains out but that never happened. He looked at me for a while before very calmingly saying, “he’s fine” and I knew he meant you.”

“Pike broke regulation?”

“I was gonna be dead in no time from damn alcohol poisoning, Jim. He didn’t have much of a choice.”

“But…when I came back, you seemed fine.”

Leonard nodded. “I was in the hospital for four days. Pike and Boyce would visit, make sure everything was all right. Three days after I was released, you came back.”

Jim sucked in a deep breath.

“I actually broke down when he told me that you were alive, everything I was feeling, everything I felt for you just…poured out of me, quite literally. I couldn’t control myself, my body was shaking and my eyes were burning and I felt like my body was falling apart but my heart was put back together.”

Hesitantly, Leonard lifted his arm and left his hand to hover over Jim’s cheek for a few moments before closing his fingers around the back of Jim’s neck and running his thumb over his cheekbone.

“And just like that, you saved my life yet another time,” Leonard whispered.

Jim froze, fearing that if he’d move, Leonard’s hand on his skin would disappear. When he dared to let out the breath he was holding and assured that Leonard will not be beyond his reach, he let himself lean into the doctor’s touch and closed his eyes.

“Don’t you see, Bones? We’re supposed to be together, no matter what, we should not go our separate ways. It will destroy us both. I can’t handle being god knows how many light years away from you.”

It would destroy them both, that much Leonard knew. But he was still unsure, his heart telling him something yet his mind completely contradicting it. He followed his heart before and ended up divorced with nearly nothing, and that was a mistake he would never do again. But it’s Jim, _his_ Jim, and he knows that Jim would never hurt him like that. He thought he had everything planned out, and even informed Starfleet Medical that he will be joining after he graduates from The Academy. The pay is good, it’s a stable job, the pension is great and best of all, he could actually get to see his daughter. And being in space, well, like Jim said, he’d be god knows how many light years away from her. It wasn’t an easy decision, and Leonard hadn’t taken it lightly. He spent hours and hours at night, wide away, hearing Jim’s soft snores from the bed next to him, thinking about it. But if he were being completely honest with himself, the thought process wasn’t all that sincere either. He had deliberately left Jim out of his calculations, out of his plans and momentarily, tore him away from his life. All that for one reason he knew all too well: he would never voluntarily leave Jim.

And he knew not leaving Jim would mean leaving stability, his daughter and safety behind instead. But he also knew that none of those would make up for the hollowed gap Jim would leave in his life and being. A gap that would be far too big for any other damn thing to fill. Leonard tried to convince himself that he can see Jim off and stay behind himself, once again all alone and left to pick up the shattered pieces of his heart.

He was lying to himself all along. And he was lying to Jim, too, when they had the same conversation and Leonard promised, saying that he thought about it extensively and thought about all his options and arrived at the conclusion that staying behind was the best for both of them. That would not have been a problem, except for one thing, Leonard didn’t think about Jim.

Being with Jim would mean giving up everything, and giving up Jim would also mean giving up everything. It’s a matter of which everything is more important to Leonard and which everything he could survive without.

“I wasn’t honest with you,” Leonard admitted, breaking the silence. “Before, I mean, when I told you that I had thought about all my options and staying here was the best one.”

“No?”

Leonard shook his head. “I did think about everything, everything except one thing. I didn’t think about you.”

Jim clenched his teeth, staying silent.

“I didn’t think about you because I knew that if I had, I’d wanna go out there with you, and I’d give up everything to be with you and I wasn’t ready to do that. I wasn’t ready to give up everything that I have left, no matter how little it all added up to. It scared me, knowing that if I factor you into my choices, it would always come down to you.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or hurt.”

Leonard huffed. “A bit of both, I guess. I want to be with you so bad it terrifies the shit out of me, kid.”

Jim’s hand moved up to close around Leonard’s wrist, keeping the hand on his face in place. “Don’t be scared, Bones,” he whispered.

“I’m trying not to be,” Leonard lowered his eyes, fixing them on the grass beneath them. “I need you so much I’m willing to give up everything, including the God-given gift that is gravity, to not see you leave without me.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” Jim promised. “Besides,” he closed the distance between them, resting his thighs against Leonard’s so he was practically sitting crisscrossed in his best friend’s lap. Jim leaned in, pushing his forehead against Leonard’s. “I need you, too.”

“Damn it, Jim.”

“What, Bones? Talk to me,” Jim pleaded, weaving his fingers through Leonard’s thick black strands, knowing it calms the doctor down.

“You’ll always be a pain in my ass, won’t you?”

“Well, I am physically incapable of leaving you behind,” Jim chuckled.

“I’m too damn old for space, you idiot.”

“Bones, you’re thirty, quit making me feel like you’re a hundred and ten.”

“Aren’t you a little too young to be picking out your crew already?” Leonard retorted.

“What am I, twelve?”

“Yeah,” Leonard nodded.

“I’m going to be Pike’s First Officer, thanks to all the credits I have, and Boyce is his CMO, but he told me Boyce needs a good medical officer to be his right hand and asked if I had anyone in mind,” Jim wiggled his eyebrows.

“How are you getting classified information?”

“I have my ways,” Jim shrugged.

“What you meant and what I heard are two very different things,” Leonard scoffed.

“Don’t be such a downer, Bones.”

“Have you met me, you doofus?”

“It’s just dawning on me that you’re going to be a lot worse out in space,” Jim shook his head.

“Well, careful what you wish for.”

“So, is that a yes? You’ll come with me?”

Leonard sighed. “Yes, you moron, I’ll go with you.”

Jim’s face lit up with a smile as bright as the sun, making silver sparkles twinkle in his eyes. Leonard could see the stars in Jim, and it made his heart flutter.

“There better be a lot of alcohol on that tin can.”

Jim took Leonard’s scruffy face into his hands and searching his eyes for any discomfort or fear or uncertainty. Finding none, and seeing his own emotions and needs reflecting back at him, Jim slowly moved in and suspected Leonard did the same, because their lips met sooner than he had excepted. He allowed himself to melt against the lips he wanted to kiss for so long.

Their lips moved against each other with caution, testing and experimenting, finding out how they fit together. More confident and courageous, they both parted their lips, deepening their connection, shivering at the jolt running through their nerves when their tongues grazed, tangling in the now heated mess.

One of them broke for air with their identically red and swollen lips barely apart. Jim planted light kisses to Leonard’s mouth, earning him a small smile from the doctor.

“Everything is going to be fine, Bones,” Jim whispered.

Leonard nodded, and finally began to believe it.

The older man managed to untangle Jim from him and lay back on the grass, pulling Jim down with him. Catching on, Jim got comfortable and rested his head against Leonard’s chest, throwing his arm on his waist.

“You drive me crazy,” Leonard ran his hand up and down Jim’s back.

“You love me,” Jim teased.

“God help me, I do love you,” Leonard sighed,

“Lucky for you, because I love you too. And you’re stuck with me.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Our new lives start tomorrow, Bones,” Jim said happily, intertwining their legs together.

“As long as you’re there, darlin’,” Leonard brushed a kiss to Jim’s forehead.

“Always, Bones, always.”

They lay a heap of human limbs until the sun rose, watching the stars twinkle and dance above, gradually disappearing into the brightening sky, making them a new home and writing them an uncertain future. As the black faded into blue into orange and finally into yellow, Jim and Leonard realized that nothing in life is certain. The one certain thing is what they have been them, what they feel in their hearts, what they say on their lips. The one certain thing is each other.


End file.
